Sucks to be Right
by Dedicatedfollower467
Summary: Jason wishes for a world where the Joker killed Dick instead of him. But it's not quite what he wanted. AU, rated T for language and major character death.
1. Chapter 1

Please be aware - Jason is a POTTY MOUTH and as I was channeling him, there is some worse language here than I would normally use. Also, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Should be obvious, but I thought I'd warn anyways.

And I just like to write about them, I'm not planning on making money off of this.

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"I can show you anything."

Jason believes her. She's some kind of spooky, interdimensional genie, and he's seen the way she can use her powers to mystify and defy.

She claims that she owes him a favor, and she says she'll show him a world where things are different.

And Jason has been feeling vindictive and angry at Bruce all week long, hating that Dick is the favorite, that he cares more for Dick than he ever cared for Jason. He wants to see a world where, just maybe, Dick isn't around to be the favorite.

"Show me a world where the Joker killed him instead of me." She gives him a look, but she knows. She's an interdimensional genie.

And so he sentences Dick Grayson to death by homicidal maniac.

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Sorry this chapter is so short - I swear the next few will be longer!


	2. Chapter 2

The smack of crowbar on flesh is a sound that Jason will never be able to get out of his head. It's a unique sound, and it comes with a memory of pain and hatred. Even when it's not him, that sound touches the deep, abiding core of anger in his heart.

Right now, it's not him. It's an eighteen-year-old Dick Grayson, and Jason feels a sick kind of pleasure watching as the Joker beats Robin with a crowbar. There's something viscerally cathartic about watching Dick in the same situation he was, although every thud makes him wince and he feels as though he might puke at any second.

Good thing he's intangible.

See, interdimensional genie can _show_ him anything, but she can't transport him to that world. So he's stuck here like some kind of freaky ghost that no one can see and who can walk through walls.

Right now he's abusing the privilege to watch a sick, twisted, horrible monster beat an eighteen-year-old boy half to death.

It's a good thing his stomach is empty, or he might be heaving intangible vomit.

But… he has to watch. _Has to._ Because this is important to him. It's important, somehow, to watch Dick feel his pain, to experience his agony, and ultimately, to die his death.

It won't make the real Dick any better, and it won't take away Jason's pain, and it won't change anything. But it's important. In this universe, anyway, Dick knows the pain, the agony, and the dying. There's finally someone who knows it like he knows it.

The beating finally stops, and Jason watches Dick's body twitching and bleeding on the ground. The Joker laughs and wipes something from his face. He leers over Dick's body, and Jason turns away. He can't watch anymore. No one should be that helpless. Not even Dick.

Jason doesn't listen to the sounds behind him, doesn't turn back until the Joker leaves. Then he turns, and watches as Dick tries to reach the bomb in time.

And, as Jason knew, as Jason experienced, he doesn't.

Jason feels the blast as a rush of hot air on his face. The explosion washes around him, and he stands unscathed. He watches as if through a curtain as Dick's body goes flying into the air, and he turns to follow it.

The explosion subsides, leaving blackened rubble strewn across the ground. Jason stands for a second over Dick's body, then drops into a crouch over it.

Dick is convulsing violently – one hand flies through Jason's legs as though it isn't there. He's dribbling blood and coughing, his face twisted in a howl of pain. It's like watching something from a horror movie, all the gore, except it's real and that makes it worse. Jason feels his stomach heave and he gags, but nothing comes out. He misbalances, hand over his mouth and falls backward on his ass.

As the convulsions end, Jason reaches forward, presses a tentative hand to Dick's forehead. He can't feel anything, and for a second his fingers brush _through_ Dick's face. Jason doesn't have any physical sensations, but it's strange.

He feels horrible, and as he watches, he wants to offer a dying, agonized Dick as much comfort as he can.

He remembers how lonely it was.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason sits there, staring at Dick's dead face, for maybe an hour. Maybe less. There's still fire in some places, but he can't look away. Is this what he looked like? So broken? So helpless?

After a little while, he hears Bruce calling. "Dick? Where are you?" Jason's never heard him so panicked, so desperate. He looks up, and it's Batman there, and that's a jolt. Because Bruce never uses real names in the field.

He's sees the fear in Bruce's body language when he comes across Dick's body, watches as he practically stumbles and falls to be next to him. There's a tense moment as Bruce checks for Dick's pulse, but Jason already knows what he's going to find.

Bruce makes no noise, but grabs Dick's shoulders and hugs his limp form tightly. Jason feels his eyes wet with tears. Did Bruce do this for him? Was this the way Bruce found Jason – broken and helpless and with all hope gone?

Bruce picks Dick up, carrying him gently in his arms like a baby. Dick looks so tiny and helpless. Jason stands weakly and follows the two.

He doesn't know where they're going, but he has to follow. He has to see what Bruce does.


	4. Chapter 4

The funeral is short and sweet, and there are a ton of people there. Jason keeps accidentally stepping through all of Dick's friends. It looks like half of Dick's high school came, and all of the Teen Titans, and several of the Justice League.

Alfred's reaction is possibly the most shattering, because he's not just somber. He's actually crying – barely controlled, heaving sobs that make his thin, frail body shake. Jason doesn't know if Alfred even reacted that way when Bruce died. He wonders if he's become jaded in the years since the death.

He resolves not to wonder whether Alfred cried for him, or if it's just Dick.

But he's really focusing on the boy in the corner, who doesn't speak to any of the others. Handsome kid, black hair, blue eyes, baby face, well-dressed. He looks like he's twelve but acts like he's twenty, and Jason knows the face. It's his own.

Little Jason hasn't known Dick long, and it shows. His eyes are dry and clear and his expression is an unreadable poker face. He stands right next to Bruce and periodically looks up at him. Jason doesn't know how his young counterpart ended up as a part of the family before Dick moved on. It doesn't matter. The point is, the kid just lost what amounts to his big brother, and Jason would give anything to know what he's thinking.

He would also give anything to know what Bruce is thinking.

Bruce isn't crying either, but his face is the darkest, coldest mask Jason has seen on him. His eyebrows are low, and he speaks to no one. There's a weird blankness to it that gives Jason chills. The eyes seem empty, soulless – even more than the white screen of the Batman mask. Sometimes Batman gives the impression of emotion, but Bruce looks like he's a dead man walking.

Jason doesn't want to think about that phrase too hard. Coming back to life is a bitch.

Jason stands there as the funeral guests leave. Alfred blows his nose and goes into the house. Bruce and young Jason stand there, looking at the casket and the hole in the ground.

Young Jason looks up at Bruce and speaks for the first time. "Are you going to kill him?"

Jason is expecting Bruce to give the answer he has always given – it would make us the same as him, it wouldn't be right, we don't kill, et cetera, et cetera. The same meaningless refrain that means Bruce doesn't take action, doesn't do what really needs to be done because of his stupid principles.

But that's not what Bruce says. Bruce grits his jaw, and anger infuses his face, and his answer is one word.

"Yes."


	5. Chapter 5

Jason follows Bruce after that, because he can't believe Bruce would actually kill the Joker. He probably said the same thing when Jason died on his world, because he's just that angry. According to his replacement, with whom he occasionally has a civil conversation, Bruce goes very nearly berserk when one of his little Robins is injured or killed.

Including Dick, apparently.

There's some crap about the U.N. building and Superman shows up trying to explain about some new ambassador that Bruce can't touch no matter what he's done. Which, quite frankly, is B.S. because Bruce could do anything he wants to the guy if he just had the stones.

And then Bruce socks Clark on the jaw, and Jason stares at him. He's lucky he didn't break his hand. Jason's never seen Bruce this angry, this out-of-control. It's a little scary.

And then, to both Bruce's and Jason's horror, the Joker steps out of the ambassador's car.

Bruce goes home, and Jason totally gets that. He's wondering whether this happened when ihe/i died. When the Joker killed him, did he then get diplomatic immunity from some idiotic little Middle-Eastern country? Was that… was it like this?

He has to believe it was like this, because he told her that the victim was the only thing he wanted to change.

Jason's beginning to understand for the first time what Bruce went through when he died.

He follows Bruce when he puts on the Batman costume and goes into the Joker's office. There isn't any need for him to listen to Joker's latest stupid nefarious plan. He's watching Bruce's face.

"Don't do it, Joker," Bruce finally interrupts. Joker turns, totally surprised, and Jason grins. It's good to see the monster knocked off his game.

"I'll give you one last chance," says Bruce, "Return to Arkham Asylum and turn yourself in."

"And if I don't?" says the Joker, "What are you going to do about it? Let your _assistant_ handle it?"

The taunt makes Bruce's face darken. Jason can feel the waves of barely concealed rage rolling off of him. His fists are balled – he's every bit ready to break, to beat the Joker into senselessness. Jason wonders how long it will take him to snap.

The Joker apparently takes his silence as a sign to continue. "I'd have loved to have seen the look on your face when you found what was left of the _brat!_ Set you off the deep end, didn't it? See, even a _madman_ can add two plus two—"

"And come up with five." Bruce is practically snarling now.

Jokers turns slyly, narrows his eyes, grinning. His voice is soft and insinuating. "Or maybe you were glad to be rid of the little darling?"

Bruce _snaps_. In an instant he's up, over the desk, one hand on the Joker's neck, the other gripping his hair. They're nose-to-nose, Bruce glaring, and Joker is shocked, eyes wide, staring at the impossibility of Batman finally losing his cool.

Bruce's voice is breathed through gritted teeth, so low it's hard to hear them. "You always know exactly the wrong thing to say, don't you?"

Joker can barely choke out his comeback. "That's – that's what makes me so special."

"Have it your way," Bruce whispers.

The crack of vertebrae snapping is loud in the room. Joker face loses its grin, shock on his face. He drops to the floor in a heap and Bruce stands there.

"Thanks, by the way," he says, "Up until now I wasn't absolutely certain that you were responsible for what happened to Dick. Your confirming it made that a lot easier."

Bruce leaves.

Jason stares for a long minute at the broken body of the Joker. And then he turns and _runs._


	6. Chapter 6

Jason is sitting on the mattress in his old room down in Crime Alley. He doesn't know how the hell he can sit on anything when he's intangible but he doesn't really care. With his legs curled up to his knees and one arm buried in his hair, he's trying not to break down. It's not true.

Bruce couldn't possibly have killed the Joker.

There's just no way.

Because despite the many times he's said Bruce loved Dick more, Jason always kind of believed that Bruce was just that goody-goody, just _stupid_ enough to really mean it when he said he would not kill. Bruce doesn't kill for any of them, and yeah, that hurts Jason.

Not as much as knowing Bruce would kill for Dick, but not for him.

The tears start to fall, and they make his clothes wet but just fall right through the mattress and keep on falling. Maybe they'll fall until they reach orbital velocity and become little ghost satellites traveling the earth. He grits his teeth and pulls his hair and curls up tightly, and lets them fall.

Shit. This sucks.

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The End. Hope you enjoyed. Sorry about the bad words and stuff!


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